Pixeless Scroll 4/2/18

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It’s not so much the long day I just put helping deal with business for my mother, it’s that forgot to pack my mouse along with the laptop.

So let’s make this a do-it-yourself Scroll — pitch in whatever you’ve got!

Then, as Scarlett says, “Tomorrow is another day!”

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164 thoughts on “Pixeless Scroll 4/2/18”

  4. @Mike: You have my sympathy. I can’t operate without a mouse, and I’ve forgotten to pack them enough time to collect a few.

    Duolingo has released Klingon in beta.
    Too bad they haven’t added the recordings of the words and phrases yet b/c I would think that a lot of the fun speaking Klingon is pronouncing it.

  8. Hope your mom is doing well, Mike.

    A while ago I asked about The Magician’s Apprentice. Is it worth taking from my laundry room’s library shelf?

    Best wishes to filers everywhere.

  10. Since Nature abhors a vacuum, here’s my NorWesCon report:
    I attended 1 workshop, 2 readings, 3 concerts, and 18 panels. I also bought 3 books and volunteered 3 hours. It was all pretty much good to excellent.
    Nancy Kress said I was omnipresent.

  11. John M. Cowan: A while ago I asked about The Magician’s Apprentice. Is it worth taking from my laundry room’s library shelf?

    You got a couple of responses to your earlier query, from Ky and me, here.

  15. “While on my run today, playing Zombies, Run!, I started to wonder whether it would be Hugo-eligible, and if so in what category. “

    Best dramatic presentation? Anyhow, I really liked that game. Should start again. I do have the board game, but haven’t tried it yet.

  18. @Hampus Eckerman

    I like the idea of having different challenges for each category! Novelette could be a cooking competition; short story, a fiendish riddle game. Best series would obviously be some sort of long distance race, with obstacles, using mobility devices of the participants’ choice.

  21. JJ and Ky: Thanks. I posted that question right before I went out of town to visit my son for his 27th birthday, which was foolish timing (for the question, not visiting my son). And it turned out I was actually looking at the Raymond Feist book, Magician: Apprentice. Any thoughts on that one?

  23. @Mike Glyer: Sending good thoughts your way, but I can’t help with the mouse.

    @TooManyJens: It seems like a game, for which there’s no category. Best Related Work, perhaps? I’m not sure it fits the super-loose criteria. Or maybe not; not everything fits into a Hugo category.

    @Jeff Jones: “I also bought 3 books . . . ”

    Yes, but which ones? 😉

    @Arifel & @Hampus Eckerman in re. Hugo Finalist Challenges: LOL!

    @Hampus Eckerman: Hey, Post coverage, nice! Though they just talked about a more-recent and down-ticket category.

    @Chip Hitchcock: I like Streep, but for Leia? Uh, no.

    @Everyone: So long and thanks for all the links! (I mean, I’ll be back – not going anywhere.)

  24. @John M. Cowan: That’s pretty funny; those books are probably wildly different! Well, Magician: Apprentice is on my shelves, unread, too*, so I can’t help. But hopefully Other Filers will, ‘cuz I’m curious.

    [ETA: And “two.” I have both this and the other book.]

    (I’m not sure if I bought Feist’s book or it was a gift or I got it in some strange way.)

  25. Somebody refresh my memory — did I do something to John Scalzi lately that I need to be singled out by name in a “don’t-let-people-repeat-in-the-Best-Fan-Writer-category” tweet?

    https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/980859587711700992

    Hey, I’d have voted for Abigail Nussbaum again if she’d have accepted a nomination. As it is, I’ll have to see what shows up in people’s Hugo Voter Packet submissions.

  26. It seems like a game, for which there’s no category. Best Related Work, perhaps? I’m not sure it fits the super-loose criteria. Or maybe not; not everything fits into a Hugo category.

    I nominated the game Terraforming Mars for Best Related Work last year (to no avail). I maintain that games related to science fiction (Terraforming Mars is explicitly inspired by KSR’s Mars trilogy, an inspiration referenced in the rule book by the fact that the player names used in examples are Kim, Stanley, and Robinson) are just as legitimate a use for that category as nonfiction books.

  27. Um, I finished all of Elizabeth Moon’s Vatta’s War series, and now I can never look a lime in the eye again?

  28. @Mike Glyer: ISTM he’s preemptively clarifying (with you as either example or sole possible point of confusion) that he means no repeats [ETA: have happened] within the past 10 years. So someone doesn’t go “oh see you’re wrong, Mike Glyer won before, so there were repeats, sheesh Scalzi you know nuthin.”

    He isn’t (IMHO) trying to say that out of all the people, make sure especially don’t repeat Glyer again.

  29. Kendall: ISTM he’s preemptively clarifying (with you as either example or sole possible point of confusion) that he means no repeats [ETA: have happened] within the past 10 years. So someone doesn’t go “oh see you’re wrong, Mike Glyer won before, so there were repeats, sheesh Scalzi you know nuthin.”

    My impression is that it was a response to someone who’d posted exactly that.

    He’s not calling you out, he’s adding a qualifier to head off the usual fan pedantry.

  31. John M. Cowan: it turned out I was actually looking at the Raymond Feist book, Magician: Apprentice. Any thoughts on that one?

    I haven’t read it, but you can try a decent-sized Overdrive excerpt here. (click on the right side or swipe right-to-left to turn pages)

  32. don’t-let-people-repeat-in-the-Best-Fan-Writer-category

    That’s not what it looks like to me, to echo Kendall & JJ. That is, it isn’t a strict prescription to not let repeats occur, but rather, that a more diverse set of Fan Writer winners [and that diversity is demonstrated by lots of non-repeating] is better than a restricted set of Fan Writer winners [with lots of repeats due to being so restricted].

  33. @Mike
    I read Scalzi’s tweet the same way Kendall and JJ read it. BTW, all the best for you and your Mom.

    @John M. Cowan
    I think I actually read the Raymond E. Feist book as a teen, but I hardly remember anything about it (well, it was almost 30 years ago), so I fear I will be no help.

    In other news, I have posted a long rambling commentary on the 1943 Retro Hugo and 2018 Hugo Awards finalists.

  34. Nonfunctional. Send sleep and better lungs.

    Also, is so moved, discuss Kindle Paperwhite vs. Kobo, as a recent Crisis, now overcome, leads me to contemplate the possible Death of Nook.

  35. “I read Scalzi’s tweet the same way Kendall and JJ read it.”

    Me too. Otherwise I shall hit Scalzi on the top of his head with my sneaker.

  36. The story that Danny Sichel asked about, “The Unprocessed Word”, is an example of recursive SF, that is, SF about SF (fandom, writing, history, publishing, etc.), and there is in fact a site that has archived multiple examples of such:

    www DOT nesfa DOT org/Recursion/

    Maybe it’s famous to everyone else, but it was New to Me.

    (They don’t have an answer to the question Danny asked, though)

  37. @Kendall:
    Tomorrow’s Kin, Nancy Kress
    Arabella and the Battle of Venus, David D. Levine
    Starlings, Jo Walton

  38. Smol Person (on seeing the icon of the Red Wombat): Piggy!
    Me (ever the pedant): No, that’s a wombat.
    Smol Person: What’s a wombat?
    Me: [ opens a tab for Wikipedia/Wombat ]
    Smol Person: It looks like a piggy because of the nose.
    Me: [ gives up ]

  39. @John M. Cowan
    I quite enjoyed it. It is the first book in a 4 book series where the first two books were conceived as a single novel. The ending of the first book does not conclude the action, but merely pauses it.

    He went on to add two dozen more novels in the same universe, but in my opinion the first few were the best, the grand series slowly dwindles and I stopped reading many volumes in. But I recommend the first series.

  40. @Jeff Jones: Yay! And sorry I’m so nosy. It’s like the song says: “It’s all about the books.” (Or it’s all about the benjamins. Something.). I’m looking forward to getting Kress’s novel at some point; I enjoyed the novella it’s based on.

    @johnstick: As another owner of Feist’s book who hasn’t read it, I want to say thanks for posting a reply about it. 🙂

  41. @Rob Barrett Now you get to read Vatta’s Peace. Cold Welcome and Into the Fire. They’re not particularly lime-heavy but still worth your time.

  42. I have read Magician, but it was 25 years ago or so. Then I liked it very much, but not sure if I would as much now when I have read more books of the same type. He is still working on in the same world, but it is diminishing returns.

    But if you have the first book, by all means try it!

  43. @Kendall: Asking is no problem. I’m looking forward to the whole novel too, and the sequel, which is out in hardcover (I didn’t have enough room in my bags).

  45. @Mike
    Re: the Scalzi tweet
    I also read it the same way as the same way Kendall, JJ, and Cora read it.

    You were good enough to be Best Fan Writer finalist then, you are good enough to be Best Fan Writer finalist now. So there.

  46. The Fiest is a better than average RPG campaign writeup. What happens if Empire of the Petal Throne were to invade D&D.
    Agree that as the series progresses there’s less worth saying.

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